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Category: Health

The once dismissed lab-leak theory is becoming increasingly plausible

The once dismissed lab-leak theory is becoming increasingly plausible

Donald G. McNeil Jr. writes: In early spring 2020, I reported an article for The New York Times on which I put the tentative headline: “New Coronavirus Is ‘Clearly Not a Lab Leak,’ Scientists Say.” It never ran. For two reasons. The chief one was that inside the Times, we were sharply divided. My colleagues who cover national security were being assured by their Trump administration sources — albeit anonymously and with no hard evidence — that it was a…

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The CDC’s mask guidance is a mess. Biden needs to clean it up

The CDC’s mask guidance is a mess. Biden needs to clean it up

Leana S. Wen writes: Last Thursday’s abruptly announced guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has devolved into a giant mess. Governors and mayors were caught by surprise, leading to a flurry of rapid changes and a patchwork of disparate regulations across the country. Businesses found themselves scrambling without the tools they need to relax restrictions for the vaccinated while protecting the ­unvaccinated. While many people happily shed their masks and celebrated the apparent end of the pandemic,…

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The 60-year-old scientific screwup that helped Covid kill

The 60-year-old scientific screwup that helped Covid kill

Megan Molteni writes: Early one morning, Linsey Marr tiptoed to her dining room table, slipped on a headset, and fired up Zoom. On her computer screen, dozens of familiar faces began to appear. She also saw a few people she didn’t know, including Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s technical lead for Covid-19, and other expert advisers to the WHO. It was just past 1 pm Geneva time on April 3, 2020, but in Blacksburg, Virginia, where Marr lives…

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723 epidemiologists on when and how the U.S. can fully return to normal

723 epidemiologists on when and how the U.S. can fully return to normal

The New York Times reports: Covid-19 cases are decreasing in the United States, and masks are no longer required everywhere, but the pandemic is not over — and won’t be until younger children can also be vaccinated, epidemiologists said in a new survey by The New York Times. The true end of the pandemic — when it becomes safer to return to most activities without precautions — will arrive once at least 70 percent of Americans of all ages are…

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Federal mask retreat sets off confusing scramble for states and cities

Federal mask retreat sets off confusing scramble for states and cities

The New York Times reports: Minnesota’s statewide mask mandate is over. But in Minneapolis, the state’s largest city, face coverings are still required. In Michigan, Kentucky and Oregon, governors cheerily told vaccinated people that they could go out maskless. But mask mandates remained in force for New Yorkers, New Jerseyans and Californians. So unexpected was new federal guidance on masks that in Kansas City, Mo., Mayor Quinton Lucas went from saying he would not change his mask order, to saying…

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Hundreds of epidemiologists expected mask-wearing in public for at least a year

Hundreds of epidemiologists expected mask-wearing in public for at least a year

The New York Times reports: When federal health officials said on Thursday that fully vaccinated Americans no longer needed to wear masks in most places, it came as a surprise to many people in public health. It also was a stark contrast with the views of a large majority of epidemiologists surveyed in the last two weeks by The New York Times. In the informal survey, 80 percent said they thought Americans would need to wear masks in public indoor…

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Just 12 people are behind most vaccine hoaxes on social media, research shows

Just 12 people are behind most vaccine hoaxes on social media, research shows

NPR reports: Researchers have found just 12 people are responsible for the bulk of the misleading claims and outright lies about COVID-19 vaccines that proliferate on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. “The ‘Disinformation Dozen’ produce 65% of the shares of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms,” said Imran Ahmed, chief executive officer of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which identified the accounts. Now the vaccine rollout is reaching a critical stage in which most adults who want the vaccine have…

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Vaccines seem to work well against coronavirus variants. It’s also complicated

Vaccines seem to work well against coronavirus variants. It’s also complicated

STAT reports: The question about how Covid-19 vaccines stand up to coronavirus variants often gets distilled to: Do they work? The simplest answer is yes. People who’ve received one of the highly powerful vaccines don’t need to be too worried about the variants for now, experts say. But the complete answer is more complicated. The real question isn’t whether the vaccines work, but how well they do. Even the best vaccines allow some “breakthrough infections” — infections in people who’ve…

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How a small city in Brazil may reveal how fast vaccines can curb Covid

How a small city in Brazil may reveal how fast vaccines can curb Covid

Science News reports: The city of Serrana in Brazil is a living experiment. The picturesque place, surrounded by sugarcane fields, is nestled in the southeast of one of the countries hit hardest by COVID-19. By the end of March, daily deaths in Brazil surged to 3,000 on average a day, a high in a pandemic that has claimed more than 405,000 lives there — the second worst death toll of any country in the world behind only the United States….

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CDC Covid messaging has persistently lagged behind scientific findings

CDC Covid messaging has persistently lagged behind scientific findings

STAT reports: Nearly a year ago, amid concerns about how to prevent transmission of the virus causing Covid-19, scientists were beginning to conclude that rigorous disinfection of surfaces — say, fogging them or deep-cleaning with bleach — was overkill. Academics were warning that the risk of so-called fomite transmission was wildly overblown. In the fall, research from Israel and Italy found that the virus couldn’t even be cultured from surfaces in hospital infectious disease units. By February of this year,…

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Covid lays bare the price of populism

Covid lays bare the price of populism

Uri Friedman writes: As populism has experienced a resurgence in recent years, many have focused on the hazards the ideology poses to democratic systems. But today’s complex and highly technical global threats—pandemics, climate change, cyberattacks, financial crises—that demand technocratic solutions have driven home a grim reality: Populism can place us all at risk. In 2018, a burst of anger over government corruption propelled a populist politician named Jair Bolsonaro to Brazil’s presidency. Brazil, which is currently suffering from one of…

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Free beer offer in Buffalo results in more vaccinations than all Erie County, NY first-dose clinics last week

Free beer offer in Buffalo results in more vaccinations than all Erie County, NY first-dose clinics last week

The Buffalo News reports: The idea of getting vaccinated had been rolling around in the back of Tyler Morsch’s mind for weeks. As a 28-year-old, he didn’t feel in any particular danger, but he finally decided he should start looking for a Covid-19 vaccination clinic this week. Then he heard the magic words. “Free beer,” he said. Saturday was the first day that Erie County worked with a local microbrewery to host its Shot and a Chaser program, offering individuals…

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Why did it take so long for Covid aerosol transmission to be officially confirmed?

Why did it take so long for Covid aerosol transmission to be officially confirmed?

Zeynep Tufekci writes: A few sentences have shaken a century of science. A week ago, more than a year after the World Health Organization declared that we face a pandemic, a page on its website titled “Coronavirus Disease (Covid-19): How Is It Transmitted?” got a seemingly small update. The agency’s response to that question had been that “current evidence suggests that the main way the virus spreads is by respiratory droplets” — which are expelled from the mouth and quickly…

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Stopping drug patents has stopped pandemics before

Stopping drug patents has stopped pandemics before

Laurie Garrett writes: U.S. President Joe Biden’s waiver of patent protections for U.S.-made COVID-19 drugs and vaccines is a historic milestone and a moral imperative. It is also an overdue acknowledgement of recent experiences. Contrary to prognostications from the pharmaceutical sector that side-stepping the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) component of the World Trade Organization (WTO) will mark the death knell of the drug industry, the world’s response to HIV/AIDS long ago demonstrated that patents stymie accessible treatment,…

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If we want to save the planet, the future of food is insects

If we want to save the planet, the future of food is insects

Richard Godwin writes: My first attempts at feeding insects to friends and family did not go down well. “What the hell is wrong with you?” asked my wife when I revealed that the tomato and oregano-flavoured cracker bites we had been munching with our G&Ts were made from crickets. “Hang on, I’m vegetarian!” cried our friend – which prompted a slightly testy discussion on whether insects count as meat, how many thousand arthropods equate to one mammal and considering almost…

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India is hiding its Covid crisis – and the whole world will suffer for it

India is hiding its Covid crisis – and the whole world will suffer for it

Ankita Rao writes: A few years ago, as Narendra Modi came into power, I worked on an investigative report about India hiding its malaria deaths. In traveling from tribal Odisha to the Indian national health ministry in New Delhi, my colleague and I watched thousands of cases disappear: some malaria deaths, first noted in handwritten local health ledgers, never appeared in central government reports; other malaria deaths were magically transformed into deaths of heart attack or fever. The discrepancy was…

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